Gamehelppente

Gameplay

This capture variant of Gomoku is played on a Go board of intersecting lines.

Players alternate turns placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. White plays first.

Players can capture a pair of the opponent's stones by placing one of their stones on either side of the pair.

Options

BGA implementation supports a plethora of variants and player preference options.

Default options are bolded. Training mode only options are in italic type.

Board size

• 9x9: Small board size for quick and casual games.

• 13x13

• 15x15: Standard Gomoku board size.

• 19x19: Standard Go board size.

Winning condition

Winning conditions of a game are displayed above the game board.

These are default winning conditions regardless of the variant setting:

• 2 player mode and team mode: Align five or more stones in a row.

• Non-team multiplayer mode: Align four or more stones in a row.

Overline win

Enable/Disable overline win option is removed, since it may lead the game into too many edge cases.

For example, when overline win is not allowed a game may end as a draw or even a defeat for the turn player.

If a player captures a stone at the end of the opponent's overline and creates a winning line, then the opponent fulfills the winning condition and can win the game.

Putting a black stone on red circled intersection captures the end of White's overline, thus making a winning line for each player and the game will be drawn.

If there were no black 5 in a row, White would have won instead.

Currently, creating an overline is a default winning condition.

Capture win

• Enabled: In addition to forming five (four in non-team multiplayer) in a row, capturing five (four in non-team multiplayer) or more sets of stones can also win the game.

In other words, players can win by capturing 10 (8 in non-team multiplayer) or more stones to win the game. With capture three variant, the target increases to 15 (12 in non-team multiplayer) or more stones.

• Disabled: Capturing stones cannot win the game.

This option cannot be disabled in multiplayer mode to prevent excessively slow games.

Opening rule (2 player only)

The first three options are unavailable in ranked games due to first player advantage.

• None: The game starts without any opening restrictions.

• Pro

- The first stone of the first player must be placed in the center of the board.

- The first stone of the second player may be placed anywhere on the board.

- The second stone of the first player must be placed at least three intersections away from the first stone.

• Long Pro

- The first stone of the first player must be placed in the center of the board.

- The first stone of the second player may be placed anywhere on the board.

- The second stone of the first player must be placed at least four intersections away from the first stone.

• Swap

- The first player places four stones, two white, and two black, anywhere on the board.

- The second player then chooses which color to play as.

- Play proceeds from there as normal with white playing their third stone.

• Swap2

- The first player places three stones on the board, two white and one black.

- The second player then has three options:

1. choose to play as white
2. choose to play as black and place a second black stone
3. place two more stones, one white and one black, and pass the choice of which color to play back to the first player

Capture three

• Enabled: Players may make captures of three stones as well as two.

Capture win requires more stones accordingly as described in 'Capture win' section.

• Disabled: Players can make captures of two stones only.

Self-capture position

• No effect: Placing stones into the bracketing stones does not trigger self-capture.

• Self-capture: Placing stones into the bracketing stones triggers self-capture. The owner of surrounding stones takes captured stones.

• Forbidden: Placing stones into the bracketing stones is forbidden in any case.

Overtime capture

• Disabled: A game ends immediately when the game end condition is met.

• Break the line: When the game is about to end by alignment, the game can continue as long as the next player is able to break the line and prevent a player from winning the game.

• Capture the entire line: When the game is about to end by alignment, the game can continue as long as the next player is able to capture the entire aligned stones and prevent a player from winning the game.

Mixed capture (multiplayer)

This option is meaningless in 2 player games.

• Enabled: Players may make captures of different colored stones as well as the same color.

• Disabled: Players can make captures of same colored stones only.

Team mode (4 player only)

• Enabled: Two players play as a team and face the other team. Players may capture the teammate's stones, but they do not score points by doing so.

• Disabled: Players play as individuals against each other.

Since BGA framework cannot handle team ELO calculation properly, team mode is playable only in training mode to prevent unfair ELO loss.

Player preference options

Open upper right menu from game screen or click 'Options' tab below the game board to access these preference options.

Display confirmation

• Enabled: Confirm button is displayed after placing the stone. The player must confirm the move to execute it. Red buttons are irreversible.

• Disabled: Every move except swap2's first two stones, swap's first three stones, and swap2's fourth stone from the third choice are irreversible.

Highlight last move

• Enabled: The last move is highlighted as an orange border.

• Disabled: The last move is not highlighted.

Display coordinates

• Enabled: The coordinates are displayed around the game board.

• Disabled: The coordinates around the game board are not displayed.

FAQ on variant options

Since various options can be combined with each other, here is an FAQ section to clarify rules implemented on BGA.

Self-capture position

These rules apply to even teammate's self-captures, so be extra careful in team games with self-capture!

Forbidden

When inserting stone in self-capture position is forbidden, forbidden move rule takes precedence over capture or win.

In this case, White cannot place stone on red circled intersection even the placement would capture 2 black stones.

This applies even if the placement would reach needed score to win the game or create a winning line.

In other words, that intersection is essentially 'locked' for White.

Self-capture

Capture three and mixed capture rules are applied to not only normal captures, but also to self-captures.

This makes things much more complex in multiplayer games.

When Red puts a stone on the red circled center while capture three is on, 2 normal captures and 3 self-captures will trigger at the same time.

As a result more than 1 player can lay claim to captured stones except left green stone and right yellow stone, which will be captured by Red.

So, who should take the other stones then?

In current implementation, the contested stones are destroyed into pieces.

In other words, no one scores for those stones and they simply vanish.

Also, self-capture occurs before game end check. Thus, a player cannot create a winning line with a self-capture move.

Overtime capture

Overtime capture is only possible when the next player can prevent another player winning the game by alignment.

Overtime (Line break)

Currently, the implementation continues the game when a player aligns 5 or more stones in a row regardless of the situation (unless a player achieves capture win).

Then, the next player must capture (or trigger self-capture, in multiplayer mixed capture + self-capture games) and break all winning lines on the board, or pass the turn and resign.

Reducing overlines into 5 stones in a row is not considered as a legal line break, since 5 in a row still wins the game.

Overtime line break follows table's capture rule settings, unlike overtime line capture which is a special capture rule.

Overtime (Line capture)

A player may not perform overtime line capture when:

• Another player achieved capture win

• Another player created multiple winning lines

• 2 or more other players satisfied winning condition at the same time

• Both sides of the only winning line are blocked, or open

• The only winning line is blocked on one side but not by the next player's stone, so the next player cannot capture the winning line (in multiplayer games)

Overtime capture is only possible at the next player's turn.

So, inserting a winning line between 2 stones of the next player triggers neither self-capture nor overtime turn when self-capture rule is enabled.

No tiebreaker

Tiebreaker is not implemented. Every player meeting the winning condition shares the victory.